


The Vigil of Faith

by Donna_Immaculata



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Angst, Catholic Guilt, Clothed Sex, Deviates From Canon, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Frottage, Guilt, Hand Jobs, M/M, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-13
Updated: 2014-12-13
Packaged: 2018-03-01 07:43:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2765207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Donna_Immaculata/pseuds/Donna_Immaculata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“I thought you were asleep,” he said.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“I’m not.” Athos was sitting in the alcove under the window, with his back to the wall and his elbows resting on his bent knees. He had taken off his doublet to use it as a makeshift seat. His cloak hung over the window, and the lit candle stub sat on the floor between his legs. He watched Aramis as he approached slowly, and the candlelight painted dancing shadows on his face and throat.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Vigil of Faith

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t even remember how and when it happened, but the idea that Aramis should have spent the night in the convent with Athos rather than with Anne had taken hold, and I finally managed to expand on it. I like Anne, and I like that she acted on her attraction to Aramis, but it just doesn’t make sense logistically. Why did not the nuns stand in as her attendants during the night in the convent? Leaving her alone with a man was blatant enabling (and required a generous dollop of suspension of disbelief).
> 
> Also, Aramis/Athos is my current fic flavour, and any excuse will do.

The shooting had stopped, the dust settled, but the thrum in Aramis’ blood and ears did not subside. The rush of heat through his veins like molten honey, he could almost taste its sweetness on his tongue, it pumped in his heart and his head. The times when he was most likely to die were the times when he felt most alive. Once the battle stopped, it drained rapidly, and he knew that the moment would come when his limbs would feel empty and hollow, before fatigue poured in to fill them. He had been keeping an eye on the lengthening shadows ever since the sun rolled to the other side of the sky, and he knew Athos had been doing the same. Darkness would give them a respite. The assassins, even though in the weaker position, had the advantage of numbers, and it was they who could choose when and where to attack. In the dark, they would not waste bullets to shoot at a target that they could not see.

They had supper in the refectory: the nuns brought bread, wine, a watery broth and sallet of burdock roots. Aramis exchanged a fleeting glance with Athos, whose expression was unreadable, and quickly looked away before either of them would laugh. A supper fit for a group of nuns. But two men who had spent all day in the saddle and whose blood was a-boil with the heat of battle would have wished for something more substantial. The Queen was pale and silent, and with her hair curling loosely around her shoulders and her huge dark eyes she looked barely more than a girl. She didn’t eat, Aramis noticed, and he saw that Athos attracted the Mother Superior to that fact with a barely perceptible incline of the head. It wouldn’t befit either of them to urge Her Majesty to eat, but the Mother Superior could, by virtue of age and status, attend to the Queen in that familiar manner. After supper, she and three of the sisters accompanied the Queen to the cell where she was to spend the night; other sisters removed the dishes from the table, speaking neither to Athos nor to him, and they left silently, to keep vigil by Isabelle who was laid out in the small chapel, outside Aramis’ reach.

Aramis shuddered. The wine had calmed his head and blood at supper, but now that he was left alone with his thoughts, its soothing effect had evaporated and an army of ants began to march through his veins, stabbing their legs through his skin from the inside out. He walked to the window and glanced out, into impenetrable darkness, wondering if the enemy were resting or if they were devising a new plan of attack. The latter, he guessed.

He walked away from the window, sensing his way around the room. They had not lit any candles as to not provide their besiegers with any point of reference in the darkness. This was the darkest hour, just before moonrise, and darkness weighed down heavily on him. He walked around the room, crossing himself before the statue of the Holy Mother, and he wished he had asked the Mother Superior for a rosary. He longed to lose himself in the familiar sensation of beads slipping through his fingers as words of prayer slipped through his mind. There was nothing here to occupy his mind, nothing but thoughts, memories of Isabelle, the girl he loved and lost, the girl who had not loved him back as much as he thought, and he had been fooling himself all his life, and she died through his fault, and there was a flicker of light, a faint flicker of warmth that he spotted from the corner of his eye, and he stopped in his pacing and stepped through the door. Following the golden gleam, he crossed the chapel, crossed himself before the cross, and walked into the next room.

“I thought you were asleep,” he said.

“I’m not.” Athos was sitting in the alcove under the window, with his back to the wall and his elbows resting on his bent knees. He had taken off his doublet to use it as a makeshift seat. His cloak hung over the window, and the lit candle stub sat on the floor between his legs. He watched Aramis as he approached slowly, and the candlelight painted dancing shadows on his face and throat.

“You should sleep,” Aramis said. “They won’t attack in the night.”

“I know.” Looking up at him steadily, Athos shifted as if to make room: an unspoken invitation. Aramis hesitated for only a fraction of a second. He unbuckled his baldrick and then the belt that held his powder bag; the belt around his middle, and then the sword belt, and he began to unwrap his sash, rubbing the spots where the combined weight of leather and metal has left welts in his skin. His shoulder hurt – from tension rather than from exertion; now that the pressure had lifted, the throb of pain had become more pronounced.

Athos didn’t speak; he continued to watch him steadily with eyes that looked dark and alien in his wan face. Aramis’ fingers fumbled with the fastenings of his doublet and he hissed with impatience, tugging at the stiff leather. 

“That won’t work,” Athos said, extending a hand mechanically. “Do you want me to-”

“No.” Aramis slipped the last button through the loop and peeled the heavy leather off his shoulders. “It’s fine.” He spread his doublet out next to Athos and sank down.

Athos stretched out his leg on the ground, and Aramis grinned. “You’ve got wine.”

“Naturally.” Athos lifted the flagon to his lips and then held it out to Aramis. “What did you expect?”

“I should’ve known.” Aramis took a deep draught. It poured down his throat like liquid balm and dissipated in his blood, drowning the army of ants that had made his limbs restless. 

“You should have,” Athos agreed, watching him calmly from the side. Aramis was beginning to get restless again under the scrutiny. “But you seemed rather… preoccupied.”

“If you remember, we were under attack,” Aramis said. He tipped his head back against the wall and nodded up at the window obscured by Athos’ cloak. “What do you think they’re doing?”

“Coming up with a new strategy for tomorrow,” Athos said, echoing Aramis’ own thoughts.

“It might work in our favour,” Aramis said. “They’ll find it hard to focus after a sleepless night.

“Only if _we_ are rested.” Athos carried the flagon to his lips. “Go to sleep, Aramis.”

“What about you?” Aramis said. He could trust Athos to be awake and alert the next morning, even if he should drink all the wine.

As if he had read Aramis’ thoughts, Athos raised a corner of his mouth in a smirk and toasted him with the flagon. Aramis took if off him. “I could do with a drink tonight,” he muttered under his breath.

He’d expected Athos to ignore his words, just as he had ignored what he had seen in the cellar that afternoon, but Athos took him by surprise. “You knew her.” His voice was entirely level, not inflected in a question. Something deep inside Aramis’ chest stirred. It wasn’t pain, exactly. Aramis had been injured once, badly enough to develop a fever that he barely survived. The way his tongue had swollen, filling out his entire mouth until he couldn’t breathe – it was the same suffocating feeling, only it didn’t start in his mouth but in his chest. For a moment, he panicked, because there wasn’t enough room for his heart to beat in the cage of his ribs, and he clenched his fist around the flagon and forced himself to take another drink, and another one, until the oppressive feeling lifted.

“That’s enough.” Athos hand wrapped itself firmly around his wrist and the flagon was wrenched from his grip. “This is not your way, Aramis. Don’t… don’t go down this road.”

“Coming from you,” Aramis said, anger at being treated like a child bubbling up in his chest, “this is-”

“Good advice.”

“Perhaps you should listen to your own advice from time to time.” Anger was good. Anger was helping to push down all those other unwanted feelings.

“Aramis.” Athos was leaning in very closely, trapping Aramis’ wrist in a vice-like grip, and his eyes bored into him. He tugged at Aramis’ arm.

“You’ll spill the wine,” Aramis said.

Athos stilled instantly. “Well,” he said.

“Well.” Aramis sighed and let go of the flagon, muttering “Ridiculous” as he watched Athos sink back into his seat.

“You can have more,” Athos said. “Just not all at once.”

“This is most generous.” Aramis pressed his hand to his heart and inclined his head in a mock bow. “Please accept my humble thanks, Monsieur le Comte.”

Athos smiled, but his gaze remained fixed at Aramis earnestly. “You’ve got to be clear-headed tomorrow,” he said. “Clear-headed and with steady hands.” He tapped a finger against Aramis’ wrist. “Like you always are.”

“Yeah.” Aramis sighed. “I know.”

“I am sorry,” Athos said after a short pause with a swift sidelong glance at Aramis.

“What for?”

“That you can’t mourn her.”

He was holding out the flagon to Aramis even before Aramis reached out a hand blindly. Aramis swallowed a mouthful of wine so quickly it made him cough. “I don’t-” Aramis began and stopped himself, before he could embarrass himself in front of Athos. He sighed again and drank some more, slowly. “I didn’t expect to see her here. I didn’t expect to see her ever again. And suddenly there she was. I recognised her voice almost before I noticed her face.”

He felt Athos tense beside him, as if a tremor had run through him. “Go on,” Athos prompted, and his voice was tight with something that Aramis couldn’t read. 

“Athos?” He touched Athos’ sleeve lightly. “Is everything all right?” Athos nodded jerkily.

“That woman,” Aramis continued. “At the Comtesse’s trial-”

“That was weeks ago.”

“You knew her.”

His voice was barely more than a whisper, yet it echoed from the bare walls and vaulted ceiling. Athos half-averted face was obscured by shadows, but even so Aramis could have sworn that he saw a spasm of pain pass over it, before Athos pulled up the mask again that he habitually wore. Aramis waited patiently, unwilling to push Athos for an answer that he was loath to give. When Athos finally spoke, Aramis wasn’t surprised that he ignored the question.

“Did your parents really want you to become a priest?”

Aramis smiled and rolled his head back, resting his aching shoulders more comfortably against the wall. “Yeah.” He peered into the darkness that hovered above their heads like a storm cloud. “I wanted to, too. I was in a seminary since I was a boy, destined to be ordained by the time I was twenty.” He saw Athos’ smile turn into a wider and wider grin as he listened.

“What happened?” Athos asked.

Aramis sighed. “Isabelle.” He took a button loop of his doublet between thumb and forefinger and twirled it distractedly. “She… I fell in love, and.” He looked up at Athos and startled when he realised how close Athos was. So close Aramis could almost distinguish the blue of his eyes, even though his face was now cast in shadows. “She fell pregnant,” he said into that clear cool gaze, repeating the words that he had spoken to the Queen a few hours before. “We were to marry, but-” he hesitated, and Athos filled the pause.

“She changed her mind?”

“What makes you say that?” Aramis had not expected that. Athos shrugged and held the flagon out to him.

“Did she-” Aramis rubbed his aching shoulder absentmindedly. “Did _she_ change her mind?”

Athos face, which had been lit up in a smile only moments ago, closed instantly. “It was a long time ago,” he said, shifting away and seating himself with his back to the wall. 

“You said she died,” Aramis said gently.

“I did.”

“Isabelle died today.”

It was, perhaps, an ungentlemanly _coup_. Yet there was something about the way Athos had looked at him, the way his face had opened and his eyes appeared true windows of the soul, that emboldened Aramis to take this route. The mysterious woman from Athos’ past had paid him a visit, and she appeared to be drawing closer and closer, like a spectre floating at him, incorporeal yet merciless. Aramis’ own pain was raw like a fresh wound, and he wished to bleed out his grief like one would flush out bad humours after being struck by a sword. Athos had never done that. His wound had closed, yet continued to fester within.

“I thought she did,” Athos said into the dark void above his head. The candle between his legs was flickering with a fainter and fainter flame. “But she did not. Aramis, she did not.” Athos turned to face him, and the anguish written across his features took Aramis’ breath away. He reached out on impulse and covered Athos’ hand with his.

“Don’t ask me, I can’t tell you,” Athos whispered. “Not tonight. Not here.”

“Where better,” Aramis said in an attempt of humour, “where better than here? We are in the house of God, Athos, and He is watching over us.” He nodded at the cross. “It is the best place for a confession.”

“My sins are not easy to confess,” Athos said. His hand twitched, but he didn’t pull it away from Aramis’ grip.

“You loved her,” Aramis said calmly.

“No other woman but her.”

“You must think me very flighty,” Aramis said after a brief pause. He had not let go of Athos’ hand, taking comfort in the warm current that seemed to pass between them. “I did, though. I loved Isabelle.”

Athos smiled a sad smile. “I know.”

“She came here to escape from me.” Once the dam had broken, Aramis found himself unable to stop. The words kept pouring out of him – words that he knew he would be ashamed for tomorrow, but there was no place for shame now. “And I found her and destroyed her.” He drew a deep breath and whispered: “I killed her.”

The hand beneath his tensed. “You did not,” Athos said in a hard voice.

“She died because of us, Athos. Had we not come here, she would still be alive.”

“She died doing her duty by the Queen,” Athos said. “Every one of us would gladly lay down his life to protect Her Majesty.” He faced Aramis squarely. “You would.”

“Yes. Yes I would.”

“And she did. Do not diminish her sacrifice because of how you feel.”

Aramis smiled. Athos’ attempt at comforting him was all too transparent, yet his heart lifted. “Thank you,” he said earnestly and pressed Athos’ hand.

Athos was shaking his head, his lips twisted in a painful grimace. “Living with the burden of having killed the woman you love,” he said in a voice that was seemingly coming from far away. “I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.” Suddenly, he looked up at Aramis, and Aramis gasped at the expression in his eyes. The candle flickered one last time and died. 

“Athos,” Aramis breathed. “Athos.” What he had read in Athos’ eyes would haunt him forever. Before his eyes adjusted to darkness, he listened to the sound of Athos’ shifting in his seat, heard him lift the flagon to his lips again and drink.

“Go to sleep, Aramis,” Athos said. “I will keep watch.”

“You don’t have to. We’re safe for now.”

“I’ll wake you up in a few hours, you can keep watch until dawn.”

Aramis nodded and, as he slid down the wall, he suddenly felt Athos’ arm wrap itself around his shoulders. Athos pulled him closer, and Aramis ended up on his side, resting his head on Athos’ leg. “You’re in pain,” Athos said calmly. He had pushed the strap of Aramis’ brace off his shoulder and was rubbing his fingertips into Aramis’ aching muscles through the linen of his shirt

“A bit. Not much.”

“Hmm…” Athos dug his fingers in more deeply, and Aramis hissed and then relaxed, because Athos released his grip on his shoulder and dragged his hand up his neck and into his hair. “Try to get comfortable.” Aramis felt Athos flex beneath him as he stretched out his arm and tugged at his cloak, pulling it off the window frame and down. Moonlight poured over them like a stream of mercury. In the next moment, the heavy fabric was thrown over him, and Aramis shuddered at the sudden warmth and the unexpected tender gesture. 

“Thank you,” he whispered. The hand in his hair tightened and the touch sent shivers down his spine. “But you’ll get cold.”

He pulled the cloak up his own body and threw the hem over Athos’ leg. “I should fetch mine…” he muttered.

“Stay where you are,” Athos said. “I’ll be fine. This is fine.” His hand moved from Aramis’ hair down to his shoulder again, in a long stroke that Aramis was prepared to bet was unconsciously done. He could not imagine Athos caressing him like that on purpose. “Your mortal body is safe for now,” Athos said with a note of humour. “Is it also comfortable?”

Aramis smiled. “As comfortable as it gets under the circumstances.” He sighed and shifted, rubbing his cheek against the leather of Athos’ breeches. “You make a surprisingly good pillow,” he added and put his hand on Athos’ knee.

It was… nothing really. The tiniest of tremors under his fingers, and then he felt it under his cheek as well. Athos was shivering, and Aramis could tell with an instinct born out of years of experience that it wasn’t a shiver that Athos felt on his skin. It was a shiver blossoming deep inside his bones and muscles and erupting from within like a spring erupts from rock. Athos probably thought he was keeping perfectly still, but Aramis’ hand had lain upon the skin of many men and women, and he could tell. He wasn’t quite sure, yet, _why_ , because this was Athos, this was Athos… and he moved his hand a fraction so that his fingers curled around the inside of Athos’ knee.

“You should lie down,” he said quietly. “You’ll be stiff tomorrow if you spend all night like this.”

Beneath his hand, Athos’ muscles tensed. Aramis lifted his head off Athos’ leg and tightened his grip around his knee. “Come on,” he said, “lie down. You can still serve as a pillow if you wish to.”

Above his head, Athos huffed, but he shifted and slid down, tugging at his doublet to shift it with him. Aramis had lifted himself off him and waited, until Athos’ arm came around his shoulders again, pulling him down. He sank into Athos’ half-embrace with a sigh.

“Let’s hope the nuns won’t find us like this,” Aramis said. “This could be misconstrued as a compromising position.”

“They won’t.” Athos’ arm around his shoulder tightened. “And since when do you worry about being caught in a compromising position?”

“Ever since I found out that your new friend likes to shoot her fellow humans for fun.”

“Protestants,” Athos said.

“This would look quite Protestant to her,” Aramis mouthed into the soft linen covering Athos’ chest and felt Athos’ ribs flutter with an exhale of laughter.

“At least as long you’re here with me, you won’t be sneaking into any of the nuns’ cells,” Athos said into Aramis’ hair.

“You really think I’d stoop to any level.”

Beneath him, Athos hummed, and Aramis felt the vibrations thrum under his mouth and the arm that lay across Athos’ chest. “Not to _any_ level,” Athos said. “I’m aware that you have standards.”

“Yes,” Aramis said and, with his heart beating madly so that he felt its pulse reverberate in his fingertips, he slipped his hand around the curve of Athos’ ribs and pulled him closer. “Yes, I do.”

He felt rather than heard Athos gasp, and then Athos’ hand alighted on his hair, and he knew. “Did you finish the wine?” he asked, raising his head and brushing his mouth accidentally against the stretch of skin that laid bare where Athos’ shirt gaped open. Athos was staring up at him with an expression that Aramis had never seen him wear before.

“Not quite,” Athos said slowly. “Do you want some?”

“Perhaps.”

Neither moved, and the air between misted over as a heat haze continued to rise. Athos’ heart was beating a pagan rhythm against Aramis’ forearm.

“Help yourself,” Athos said.

Aramis lowered his head and brushed his mouth softly against Athos’. It wasn’t a kiss, their lips barely touched, and Athos hadn’t moved. He lay quite still and Aramis felt his chest work with laboured breathing. This was insane; he couldn’t think of anything that would be more insane and more unlikely, and yet he was so sure. If that hadn’t been Athos, he would not doubt for a second. The only thing that made him hesitate was the fact that this _was_ Athos, and that Athos was the least likely person he knew to permit this. And yet… and _yet_.

He lowered his head and slid his lips along the line of Athos’ jaw, burrowing his face in the crook of Athos’ neck. “Do you want to sleep?” he murmured.

Athos puffed out a breath of laughter. “Will you let me?”

No longer hesitant, because he now knew for certain, Aramis lifted his head and kissed Athos with sudden and wild abandon, pushing his mouth open to taste the wine and heat that coated his lips, kissed him until he felt a moan rise up from Athos’ throat. He swallowed it and released Athos’ mouth. “Yes,” he murmured. “I will let you, if that is what you wish.”

“Aramis,” Athos said in a low voice. “There are many regrets already, in both our lives. Do you want to add another one to the list?” But his hand was curled around Aramis’ shoulders and his fingers pressed into Aramis’ bare skin where his shirt collar had ridden down.

“It’s very likely we will die here tomorrow,” Aramis said. “There won’t be any time for regrets.”

“That’s a comfort.”

Aramis smiled and heaved himself above Athos, aligning their bodies from chest to hip. Athos arched into him, staring up at Aramis with wild eyes. Moonlight conjured silver highlights in his hair and eyes. His body was taut like that of a whippet that had scented blood, his muscles quivered with an energy that was about to uncoil, and his skin, where Aramis had slipped his hand under the hem of Athos’ shirt, was hot.

“What do you do?” Aramis whispered, grinding his hips into Athos until it hurt. “What do you _do_ , Athos, when your blood is on fire after battle?”

“I drink.”

“This is better.”

He kissed Athos again, delighting in the way Athos parried the vicious attack of tongue and teeth, and he pushed Athos’ shirt up and dug his fingers into the hard line of muscles beneath his ribs. “I will not regret this,” he panted against Athos’ mouth. “And I will make sure that you don’t, either.” Sliding his hand down Athos’ abdomen, skimming over an old scar, and then his fingers were on the buttons of Athos’ breeches, and Athos’ legs fell open. Aramis cursed and glanced down. “How many buttons are there?” he undid the next one and the next. “How long does it take you to get dressed in the morning?”

“Aramis!” Athos ground out in that exasperated tone that he reserved for his name. He gripped Aramis’ wrist and began to pull his hand away. “If it’s such a hardship, I’ll do it myself-”

“No, no, let me.” He kissed Athos again, slowly, sinking the fingers of his other hand into Athos’ hair. “I just. Want to touch you.” His hand slipped in, under the thick leather and soft linen, and Athos hissed in a breath as Aramis’ hand stroked down the length of his cock. “You’re so _hard_ ,” Aramis breathed with his fist around Athos’ cock. He twisted his hand so that his knuckles grazed over the damp hairs that covered Athos’ groin. Athos gasped soundlessly, sucking in a lungful of air when Aramis moved his hand again. “Do you want anything-?”

“Just this,” Athos said. His eyes were open and fixed on Aramis’ face. He moved his hand from the nape of Aramis’ neck to his face, cupping his cheek and caressing his temple with his thumb. Then, his hand glided down, fingers skipping along the line of Aramis’ jaw, down his throat and his breastbone, until it was stopped by the fabric of his open shirt. “This is madness,” he whispered.

“It’s the moon,” Aramis whispered back, glancing up at the window.

“Is this what you’re going to be telling yourself tomorrow?”

“No.” Aramis shook his head and looked back at Athos. “I am _not_ going to regret this. And neither,” he bit into the soft skin at the base of Athos’ throat, “are you.”

Athos groaned then, a desperate, loud noise that rang in the bare room and dispersed in the darkness. His wrist snagged against the linen of Aramis’ shirt, because he pulled his hand back too quickly, clumsily almost, and it was not like Athos to be clumsy. But his touch was confident when he shoved his hand under the waistband of Aramis’ breeches. Aramis’ breath bated and he pulled in his stomach to give Athos room to manoeuvre. His muscles spasmed the moment Athos’ hand brushed against his cock, and he sagged, barely able to support himself on trembling arms. Athos’ hand was too dry, skin chafed against skin, painfully so, and Aramis pulled in his knee, pulled out Athos’ hand, lifted it to his mouth and licked across his palm.

“Do it now,” he whispered.

Athos raised himself on his elbow and began unbuttoning Aramis’ breeches one-handedly. “Come here,” he growled once he had laid him bare. His body tensed when Aramis’ skin made contact with his, and his muscles rippled and tightened under Aramis’ weight. Pressed up against each other, they both began to move in a hard, erratic rhythm, both thrusting into Athos’ hand that lay trapped between their bodies. There was no art to it, no finesse whatsoever. It was desperate, animal rutting, pain as much as pleasure as Aramis’ knees and Athos’ shoulderblades chafed over the stone floor and their teeth scraped over the other’s skin. Aramis pressed his mouth against the side of Athos’ neck, coating his lips and tongue with salt and gunpowder and grime. Athos’ mouth was clamped to his shoulder, to the spot that he had massaged earlier, as if he attempted to suck the tension out of Aramis’ aching muscle. Athos’ grip was so tight now and sweat had made them both slippery, and the friction of Athos’ cock against his own made his head spin. And then, Athos’ fingers clenched in his hair and Athos yanked his head back and _bit_ his mouth, hard. So hard they both tasted blood. “Fuck.” Athos snarled against his lips. “ _Fuck_.”

Aramis felt him come even before the tell-tale wetness on his stomach. Athos’ head fell back, the throat long and exposed, and his face convulsed in nigh-agony. His hips jolted up, almost dislodging Aramis, but he clung to Athos like he would to a bucking horse. And there it was: the hot gush on Aramis’ stomach as Athos spilled himself between them. His hand stilled and Aramis hissed in frustration, thrusting hard into the tight wet heat, and he came within the span of a few heartbeats, breathless and dizzy and biting down on Athos’ throat.

He permitted himself to relax into Athos, cradled by heavy, languid arms and between legs that were spread for him. Athos’ chest was rising and falling with deep breaths, and his heart was slowing down beat by beat under Aramis’ ear. Aramis' own limbs were trembling now that tension had left them. 

“Are you cold?” Athos asked into his hair. He was already tugging at the discarded cloak and pulling it over them.

“No.” Aramis unwrapped his arms from around Athos, kissed him chastely on the mouth and rolled on his back. A metallic glimmer caught his eye and he nodded at the cross, illuminated by the light of the moon. “Does this,” he gestured at their both dishevelled state, the unbuttoned breeches and damp linen, “does this mean eternal damnation, do you think?”

“I was bound for Hell in any case,” Athos muttered.

Aramis shook his head and, never taking his eyes off the cross, groped for Athos’ hand and squeezed it. “You’re in good company,” he said, and turned his head to Athos.

Athos looked him square in the eyes. “Always.”


End file.
